AOL Travel has an interesting short article about how tart cherries may help fight jet lag. The cherries contain small amounts of melatonin, a hormone that co-regulates sleep patterns.
Author Archives: health
Harvard’s Dreams
Is Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s book My Stroke of Insight Harvard’s new “Opiate of the Masses”? On her web page http://drjilltaylor.com/book.html, she says, “I believe the more time we spend running our deep inner peace circuitry, then the more peace we will project into the world, and ultimately the more peace we will have on the planet.”
But since when is the “here and now” fair? I imagine that many sociopaths live in the “present moment” and feel inner peace after a “kill.” And if everyone on Earth drank themselves into a very prolonged stupor, fewer endangered species would go extinct in the near future.
Surely, rather than getting too wrapped up in imaginary “inner peace circuitry,” we must first focus on reality and root causes: we must do more to help the poor, the crippled, the abused; we must do more to curb the excesses of our hackneyed justice system; we must do more to stop white-collar crime.
Quit Sit-on-your-bottom Activities
Quit spending money sitting down. Everybody wants your dollars and cents, and they want you to spend it in a chair–at concerts, movies, restaurants, ballets, musicals, coffee shops, meditation groups . . .
Stay on your feet. Go for a walk or a hike. Lift weights while you watch the news. Find a good deal at a gym (the best deals usually appear when a gym first opens for business and offers a contract that stipulates that they can only raise your fees by, lets say, 1 percent every 3 years).
Shoshone Point, Grand Canyon
Shoshone Point is a great spot for watching clouds and the way their shadows move across the canyon like wild beasts of prey.
Looking across the Grand Canyon from Shoshone Point
For more photos, see our Gallery
Talked to a ranger in the Shoshone Point parking lot. He said that he had met his wife at Indian Gardens (she was hiking through), that Indian Gardens was home (though he no longer lived and worked there).
I’m hiking in the Grand Canyon again this year, the third year in a row. The first time, I stayed in a motel in Williams, Arizona, and drove into the Grand Canyon National Park every morning for day hikes. Last year I stayed in the lodges on the South Rim, hiked to Phantom Ranch (which is located at the bottom of the Canyon), and then spent another three days hiking up and down primitive trails. This year I am hiking from the South Rim to the North Rim and then back to the South Rim.
The food is good at Phantom Ranch, but up above on the South Rim, I prefer to buy items from the general store, rather than from the restaurants.
Also see:
A Fish and Vegetable Diet
We have heard about low-fat diets, gluten-free diets, vegetarian diets, and other approaches to healthy eating. Perhaps the best low-fat diet is not only gluten free, it’s grain free.
Grains tend to cause weight-gain problems, and grains can irritate your intestinal walls, resulting in inflammation and irritable bowels. (I have read that after 50, we all have abnormal bowels.) But fruits and vegetables contain more antioxidants than grains, and a diet rich in fruits and vegetables will provide enough fiber. If your digestive system is particularly irritable, then switch to frozen fruits and vegetables. Freezing kills some germs and partially breaks down abrasive fiber (and I have an easier time eating vegetables and fruits that I have thawed in the microwave or cooked from the frozen state). According to The National Center for Home Food Preservation, “Freezing does not kill all bacteria, yeasts and molds present in food, but it does prevent their multiplication if the food is held at 0°F or less. When thawed, the surviving organisms can multiply again.”
Fish is good for your brain, heart, skin, and digestive tract. But choose wisely. According to Toronto Public Health, children, teenage girls, and women of childbearing age may eat one serving of pollock or wild Pacific chum, coho, or pink salmon a day (and men, teenage boys, and women over 50 can eat more than one serving a day).
Toronto Public Health also lists fish that children may eat twice a week (2 servings a week), teenage girls and women of childbearing age may eat 4 times a week, and men, teenage boys, and women over 50 can eat more often: Atlantic mackerel, wild Arctic char, herring, wild chinook, sockeye, and steelhead salmon, sardines, smelt, sole, Atlantic cod, flounder, and haddock. (I have not included their recommendations for shellfish and tuna. Plus I never eat freshwater or farmed fish. And for both medical and ecological reasons, I stay away from marlin, shark and swordfish.)
Frozen fish is usually fresher than “fresh” supermarket fish. Buy North American fish — not fish from China, which often contains preservatives or experiences suspect processing and delayed freezing.
Fish is low fat and anti-inflammatory (unlike red meat, which can bring on or exacerbate inflammation). If you want a more varied diet, eat skinless chicken and turkey breasts once in awhile.
Bake or steam your fish and poultry. And read about Dr. Sear’s Zone Diet: The Zone Diet
Hiking and Backpacking Gear
As I have said numerous times, I take supplements (see the disclaimers and warnings listed at the bottom of Spinach, Greens, and Eye Health). Rather than listing the supplements in my posts, I have listed them in the sidebar on the far right. I do not expect you to buy these items, but the Amazon links do provide handy summaries, price comparisons, and reviews.
I have also mentioned that walking, running, and hiking are very good for the health (including respiratory, cardiac, and digestive health), so in this post I am going to list some of the gear I use on hikes. I am listing the Amazon links. You can follow the links to detailed descriptions, prices, and reviews. I own all of the following gear:
Julbo Race Sunglasses (w/ Zebra Photochromic Lenses)
Osprey Talon 44 Mountaineering Backpack
Osprey Stratos 24 Pack
Deuter Packs AC Lite 16 Backpack
Mountainsmith Tour Lumbar Pack
Men’s Merrell Phaser Peak Waterproof Boots
Men’s Danner Expedition GORE-TEX Boots 
Blood Tests Away From Home
If you must have blood tests every 4 to 8 weeks while you are away from home, then compare what the lab provides with what your doctor requires. Your doctor might ask for a series of individual tests, but the lab might include all those tests in one package. The package of tests is often cheaper than the total cost of the individual tests ordered separately. For example, the Hepatic Function Panel (which is a group of liver-related blood tests) is cheaper than the total
price of the separate tests ordered individually.
Have your doctor give you a lab test requisition form. Then when you arrive at your vacation destination, ask the lab if they have a package of tests that includes the tests your doctor has ordered. If their package is cheaper, phone your doctor, tell him the name of the package of tests, and have him FAX a new requisition to the lab.
from Palm Treo
Joint Stress and Bone Bruising
I was telling my brother that when a joint starts clicking (when he feels the bones in the neck, spine, hip, or knee, etc., click on one another or clunk by one another), he should change his position in such a way that the “clicking” and “clunking” goes away. I’m not talking about an occasional clicking noise. In fact you probably won’t hear an actual noise. I’m saying that I don’t want to feel my bones clunking by one another. I don’t want to feel my joints clunk.
For example, if I am doing shoulder raises (shoulder presses) on a weight machine, and the vertebrae in my spine start clicking (or noticeably sliding, clunking, bumping, or thumping by one another), I press my head back against the headrest/seat. If my knee or hip joints start “clicking” when I am on the recumbent bike, I move the seat back one notch. And if my hip starts clicking/clunking while I am doing sit-ups, I adjust the angle of my foot and leg.
Repeated “clicking” or “clunking” of the bones in the joints leads to bone bruising, bone wear, and pain, leading to physical compensations that put unhealthy stresses on the muscles, tendons, and joints.
If an exercise causes excruciating pain, stop that exercise. If an exercise causes a joint to clunk, find another way to do that exercise.
